Top Ten Tuesday: ALTER EGO’S

What would you do if you knew that you could become a better version of yourself? If only the best parts, an alter ego if you will, would come out to improve your overall life, would you do it? What if it came at the risk of your life? These are the questions that the new film LIMITLESS ask us, so in WAMG fashion, we used it to inspire this weeks top ten!

TOP TEN ALTER EGOS

Now, these don’t have to be good. We are exploring the good, the bad, and the downright ugly… Enjoy kids!

10. Britt Reid / The Green Hornet (THE GREEN HORNET 2011)

THE GREEN HORNET was originally developed as a radio show in the mid 1930’s and under the vigilante’s mask was Britt Reid, a direct descendant of the Lone Ranger. After a few incarnations over the years (a Universal movie serial, a 60’s TV show costarring Bruce Lee), The Hornet was revived this yeas in a wildly outlandish, silly, and expensive goofball adaptation which presented him in the form of Seth Rogen who rewrote Britt Reid in his own image, a chubby, irresponsible party boy. Rogen’s boyish charms are endearing but far from how the character was originally conceived.

09. Peyton Westlake / Darkman (DARKMAN 1990)

When tragedy takes away all a man has – his home, his work, even his face – he may have no other choice but to become a new person. If not to regain his old life, then to exact revenge on those who destroyed his previous life. This is the plight of Dr. Peyton Westlake in Sam Raimi’s 1990 thriller DARKMAN. Westlake (Liam Neeson) is trying to perfect an artificial skin in order to help accident victims. When thugs break into his lab to grab some documents his girlfriend had left behind, they kill Westlake’s lab partner and blow up the building along with the gravely wounded doctor. Retrieving his almost lifeless body, a team of surgeons sever his nerve endings in order to relieve him of the intense pain. But there’s a side effect – his emotions rage out of control and his physical strength intensifies. Escaping the hospital, the bandaged Westlake takes to the sewers and deserted buildings and begins to put together a new lab. He’ll use his artificial skin to make masks (which dissolve after 100 minutes) and go after the gang. After much effort, he’s able to recreate his old face. He contacts his girlfriend who believed him to be dead. They take in a fair, but disaster strikes when his rage causes him to lash out on a “carnie”. As his face begins to dissolve, Westlake returns to the shadows. The doctor is no more – he is now and forever Darkman. This film plays out liek a great comic book story, although it was written directly for the screen (eventually Marvel put out a comic). THe character resembles the Invisible Man, while hiding out like the Phantom of the Opera, and striking back at evil like Batman. It’s no wonder that it inspired two direct-to-video sequels. A decade later Raimi would get to helm the big screen debut of another alter ego character right from the comics – SPIDER-MAN. DARKMAN is a very entertaining mix of horror, science fiction, superheroes, and crime thriller anchored by a very sympathetic performance by Neeson as the tragic doctor and his revenge obsessed alter ego.

08. Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl (KICK-ASS 2010)

Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of. Well, this is not true for all little girls, especially Mindy Macready who battles crime as the foul-mouthed pre-teen terror Hit-Girl as played by Chloe Grace Moretz in Matthew Vaughn’s big screen adaptation of the Mark MIller/ John Romita Jr’ comic KICK-ASS. When we first meet Mindy she’s sweetly talking to her father, ex-cop Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage) while standing in an open field on a pleasant sunny day. The quiet is shattered when Damon pulls out a pistol and shoots his little angel square in the chest. Turns out this is their version of home-schooling. She’s testing her bullet-proof vest. Later, after treating her to an ice cream dessert, he gives her a birthday present: a nasty retractible straight razor. It seems that they’re a crime fighting duo – Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. Later we get to see her wreck havoc when Big Daddy sends her into a drug den to rescue the in-way-over-his-head Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson). Those “gangstas” don’t stand a chance. Later she and daddy try and impart some advice to the novice hero (her remarks would make a ship full of sailors bluch). During the big assault on the criminal’s rooftop fortress, Hit=Girl becomes the greatest secret weapon for justice as she uses her little innocent disguise to gain access to the building. At the finale, when Mindy hangs up her tights, mask, and purple wig, she finds her new identity as a grade school girl. Still a bit of that pint-sized hellion emerges when needed. Hit-Girl may have horrified older movie-goers, but the character became one of the unexpected delights in this entry in the super-hero movie genre.

07. Nick Twisp / Francois Dillinger (YOUTH IN REVOLT 2009)

YOUTH IN REVOLT, based off of the 1993 novel Youth In Revolt: The Journals Of Nick Twisp, is the tale of a boy named Nick Twisp, of above-average intelligence, who can’t seem to really say what he really means. This is where Francois Dillinger comes in, Nick’s bad boy alter ego. He has a mustache, a deeper voice, and cares not for authority. He IS Nick’s inner bad boy. The problem is, Francois causes a great deal of trouble by committing crimes that Nick is surely blamed of. Now Nick is stuck either learning how to control Francois or deal with the consequences. Oh yeah, there’s a girl involved with most of it… go figure!

06. Roger “Verbal” Kint / Keyser Soze (THE USUAL SUSPECTS 1995)

Who is Keyser Soze? It’s a question that recurs throughout THE USUAL SUSPECTS and points directly to the heart of what the film is all about. Kevin Spacey portrays the physically handicapped Roger “Verbal” Kint, a small-time criminal best known for his ability to talk, excessively, but he has smarts. He’s recruited into a gang of five very different criminal personalities by the mysterious Kobayashi, employed by the even more mysterious and extremely dangerous Keyser Soze, a name more synonymous with myth than man. The five men reluctantly take the job, fully unaware of the truth behind the mission and the true identity of Keyser Soze, meticulously playing them and the cops the entire time for his own devious ends. For the sake of those of you who, by some unfortunate twist of fate, have not yet seen THE USUAL SUSPECTS, I will refrain from revealing the identity of Keyser Soze anymore than I already have… but, it’s Kevin Spacey. Yes, Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze. Deal with it. It’s your own fault for having waited more than 15 years to see such an awesome film.

05. Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde (DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE 1931)

Who better personifies the alter ego than the dual personalities of Robert Louis Stevenson’s DR> JEKYLL AND MR HYDE. A treatise of separating good and evil by using a potion, the 1930 horror classic stars Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins and Rose Hobart. Or you may be partial to the film starring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner that was released a decade later in 1941. Either way, both films were based on Stevenson’s 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The scenes during the transformation from the sane, calm Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde’s dissolute appearance of that of a murdering maniac were so effective when shown up on the big screen. Director Rouben Mamoulian revealed in the book The Celluloid Muse that it was all done when a series of coulored filters matching the make-up were used, enabling the make-up applied in contrasting colours, to be gradually exposed or made invisible. Perc Westmore’s make-up for Hyde, simian and hairy with large canine teeth influenced greatly the popular image of Hyde in media and comic books; in part this reflected the novella’s implication of Hyde as embodying repressed evil and hence being semi-evolved or simian in appearance. Makes you wonder: Does good and evil lurk in all of us?

04. Norman Bates / Mother (PSYCHO 1960)

“Norman Bates no longer exists. He only half existed to begin with, And now, the other half has taken over, probably for all time.”, explains the psychiatrist just before we last see Norman Bates in the final shot of PSYCHO, now fully transformed into his alter ego, wrapped in a blanket while Mother’s voice speaks. Tony Perkins’ sly expression glares out at us from against an almost blank background, and then briefly, almost subliminally, there comes the superimposed image of Mother’s corpse, her skeletal features briefly lining up with those of her son. PSYCHO is immortal.

03. Clark Kent / Superman (SUPERMAN 1978)

Truth, justice, and the American way. Siegel and Shuster came on to the comic scene in1938 with a radical new concept of the hero America needs-an alien from another galaxy. As the character of Superman/Clark Kent develops over the years, he grapples with the current events and personal affairs like the rest of the planet. His charismatic and handsome persona as Superman (Kal-El) is counterbalanced as Clark Kent; a mild-mannered reporter who is aneyeglass wearing, awkward, and often clumsy human. Guided perpetually by his birth father from Krypton, Jor-El as Superman, and raised by his Earth father, Jonathan Kent, he often seeks direction for his deeds from both for the safety and betterment of our world (and others as the comic series goes on). In a constant battle against good and evil, not to mention copy deadlines,Superman has managed to keep his costume changes a secret via his super speed while keeping his home base at Metropolis. He has become one of the most beloved dual-ego personalities formany generations and many to come.

02. Bruce Wayne / Batman (BATMAN BEGINS 2005)

Just as Superman has been portrayed by many different actors and diverse media types, Batman/Bruce Wayne has successfully engaged our attention since 1939 first appearing in Detective Comics lucky number 27 by the creator Bob Kane. Billionaire Bruce Wayne creates his alter persona Batman in vengeance of his parents murders that he witnessed as a child; thus feeling that he needed his own brand of vigilante justice to balance out the bad in Gotham City. With unlimited income and discretion at his disposal, he is able to maintain a fashionable and high profile image as Bruce, and also a secretive and effective superhero as Batman. Batman is a feared and almost otherworldly opponent against the criminal element by wearing a successful disguise with utility belt and all. Since Bruce Wayne is an incredibly intelligent man, it enables him to enhance his secretive nature as Batman combating the ills of the city and function as the diversified philanthropist. As the saga continues, new gadgets and villains arise in both of his worlds: Bruce Wayne and the Batman.

01. The Narrator / Tyler Durden (FIGHT CLUB 1999)

Even thought the primary character in FIGHT CLUB is played by two actors, the role has been rendered unforgettable by it’s fantastic performances. On the surface, the main character — known only as “The Narrator” and portrayed by Edward Norton — is a apathetic, unambitious average Joe, stuck in a dead-end, unsatisfying corporate job and his only semi-pleasure in life is gradually developing the perfectly drab Norwegian interior design for his flat. That is, of course, until his subconscious kicks himself in the ass in the form of a diametrically opposed split-personality. Enter the memorably malicious Tyler Durden, portrayed by Brad Pitt. Durden takes our main character deep down into the underbelly of civilized life, a place he’s never seen, nor even dreamed of and totally out of his element, but he finds himself completely fascinated. As the two delve deeper into actions and philosophies of anarchy, creating more dangerous consequences with every choice, it eventually dawns on our main character that Tyler Durden is far from who, or what, he ever imagined him to be. Even the the first rule of the fight club is to never talk about the fight club, everyone has — and still is — talking about FIGHT CLUB.

Who are your favorite alter egos? Let us know! After all, you must love movies too or you wouldn’t have stopped by!